Canadian Ticket Pricing

This morning I got an email from Canadian fan Stephen Engel, who passed on this info about ticket prices in Canada:

Hey Joe,

Just thought I would drop you a line concerning the upcoming tour. Here in Montreal, the official announcement was made. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, Jan. 26. The prices are $49.50CAN and $59.50CAN plus related service charges, and I would assume that the ticket prices are similar in the other venues across Canada. So maybe you can pass that info along if people haven't already heard about it.

You've got a great site going, keep up the good work.

Thanks, Steve

While obviously there's no uniform ticket price everywhere, this is probably an indicator of what the ticket pricing will be generally like in Canada. Your mileage may vary. :)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:05 AM

First Official Tour 2007 Confirmation

The official word came down on the Canadian dates from band management today. Here's the detail from their newsletter:

Putting to bed the longstanding rumours of a reunion tour, Heaven and Hell have announced their first tour dates for 2007. The tour will feature 11 Canadian shows, along with an exciting one-night-only performance at one of the most prestigious venues in the world, New York's Radio City Music Hall. Heaven and Hell reunites Tony Iommi with Ronnie James Dio, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice for the first time in 15 years.

Currently there are 12 scheduled stops, starting on March 11 in Vancouver and ending on March 30 in New York City. The ‘Heaven And Hell’ world tour will continue until the end of the year with shows in the US, Asia and Europe. Additional dates will be announced shortly.

Multi-platinum recording artist Megadeth will be joining the tour, and previewing never before heard material from their upcoming release on Roadrunner Records, United Abominations. The tour also brings the return of Down, featuring Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown from Pantera, as well as Pepper Keenan of COC. This will undisputedly be the most anticipated rock tour of 2007.

The heavy metal icons are also scheduled to release a new anthology entitled Black Sabbath: The Dio Years. Anticipated release date is 3rd April 2007 on Rhino/Warner Bros. Records.

Here are the confirmed tour dates:

March 11: Vancouver, BC - Pacific Coliseum
March 13: Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
March 14: Calgary, AB - Saddledome
March 16: Regina, SK - Brandt Centre
March 18: Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
March 20: Sault St. Marie - Steelback Centre
March 22: Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre
March 24: London, ON - John Labatt Centre
March 26: Montreal, PQ - Bell Centre
March 27: Quebec City, PQ - Colisee Pepsi Arena
March 28: Ottawa, ON - Civic Centre
March 30: New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall

The Iommi.com camp also released ticket pre-sale information, here are those details:

As we said in our mailout last week, we will be running a presale facility for fans of Tony and Heaven & Hell. The presale will start on Wednesday, 24th January 2007 at 12 noon EST (which is 5pm UK time), two days before the tickets go on general sale.

To access the presale site go to: http://heavenandhell.frontgatetickets.com.

You will need to register for the site to purchase tickets. Tickets are limited to 6 per person. Please note that this presale is for fans of all four members of Heaven & Hell, not just Iommi.com members, so we’re expecting considerable demand for the tickets, particularly for the New York show, and can’t guarantee that everyone will be successful. Good luck!

Please note these are the only confirmed tour dates. There are some European festival dates that are reported to be on sale, but to date, these dates above are the only confirmed dates from band management. Please Please PLEASE don't email me asking me what the rest of the dates are. I DO NOT HAVE ANY MORE. If you email me asking for more dates, your email will be ignored. Sorry to sound so harsh, but I get people begging me for the "inside info", or "the real list" or something like that. I do not have time to deal with all of that. If I hear anything, I'll post it. That honestly is all the info there is for now.

Here are the other rumoured European festival dates:

June
2 - 3 - Milan, Italy at Gods Of Metal Festival
6 - 9 - Sölvesborg, Sweden at Sweden Rock Festival
9 - Tampere, Finland at Sauna Open Air Festival
10 - Helsinki, Finland at Jäähallissa
19 - Warszawa, Poland at Torwar
20 - Katowice, Poland at Spodek Hall
22 - 23 - Balingen, Germany at Bang Your Head!!! Festival

Anything else besides this, AND I MEAN ANYTHING has yet to be decided or announced. Again, please don't email me asking for more dates - if I had them, I'd post them.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:40 AM

Lots of Heaven & Hell Updates

OK, I got done listening to the Geezer Butler and Ronnie James Dio interviews with Eddie Trunk. I wasn't planning on staying up, as I was pretty tired, but I got into it. Was nice chatting with some of y'all over on Eddie's site during the show. Wanted to post a few updates based on what was said. Here's some tidbits. These were all said by either Geezer, Ronnie, or Eddie on the show.

• As I covered earlier in the evening, the first US gig for the Heaven & Hell tour will be March 30th at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. There will be no opening act for this show, it's just Heaven & Hell. Tickets are expected to be priced between $54.00 - $74.00 and go on sale Friday, January 26th at 10am.
• There will be other US dates, likely in August. No further info is available on them yet.
• After the US dates, they will likely play UK, Japan, & Australia.
• Both Geezer & Ronnie said that it is pretty likely there will be no Ozzy era tracks played during the Heaven & Hell shows. (Ed Note: HUZZAH!)
• Tour rehearsals start roughly two weeks from now.
• Black Sabbath: The Dio years will be released Apr 3rd.
• All three newly recorded tracks will be on the "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years" album. It was previously reported that only two would be, but all three will be there.
• There are no keyboards on the newly recorded tracks.
• Keyboards on the tour will be handled by Scott Warren from Dio's band.
• Geezer did not write any of this new stuff, nor did Bill or Vinny - these tracks were written by Tony & Ronnie. Side note: A recent Rudy Sarzo interview said that two of the three new Sab tracks were originally ideas Ronnie had put forth for the next Dio album, but got used here instead.
• Ronnie feels that this was never intended to be a full fledged reunion when it started, just the couple of tracks for the compilation. He did say that the opportunity to dust off the old Dio era tracks was too great to pass up. Finally, he said that history has shown they can't plan too far ahead for this, and that they do not intend at this point to carry on past the tour.
• Part of the reason they called this Heaven & Hell and not Black Sabbath was that they all felt that Sabbath was "back together" for awhile now with Oz, and that since they went into the hall of fame with that lineup, that that's the way "Black Sabbath" will remain. I've said that for a few years now that we'd likely never see another lineup change in Sabbath, and it looks like that's coming to pass.
• Ronnie feels that this tour/new material is an affirmation of the legacy Dio era of Sabbath. I agree with him. It's great to see this again. I saw these guys in 1992 on the Dehumanizer tour. Be great to see it again.

A personal observation. "The Dio Years" is coming out on Rhino. Rhino has also put out some more recent Sabbath things, like the two CD Symptom of the Universe set and Black Box. These items were released in North America ONLY. I will attempt to find out if this will be the case for Dio Years too, or if it will be a more worldwide release. Given the nature of the tour, I would think so, but I cannot find that out either way at this point.

Ronnie also said that after the Heaven & Hell thing is finished, he will be going back into the studio with Dio to record Magica II & III and then tour "with a stage show worthy of the story". This will be great, as I was really into Dio's stage shows back for Last in Line & Sacred Heart. Great stuff. Be nice if he does that, but I saw Dio on the Magica tour, and he played to at most 1500 people in Dallas. It'd be awfully expensive to lug around a stage show like Sacred Heart to only play to that many. We'll see.

Looking forward to the announcement next week of official tour dates, and opening acts. Keep it tuned here!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:37 AM

First Heaven & Hell US Date

It appears the first US date has been announced - sort of. The first US gig will be in New York City NY at Radio City Music Hall. The date is supposedly March 30th.

Picked this up tonight at siN's Metal News and here...

Exclusive: We're happy to be the first to announce that HEAVEN AND HELL (Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice) will be performing at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 30th. Tickets are expected to be priced between $54.00 - $74.00 and go on sale Friday, January 26th at 10am.

------

There will be no opening act for the Radio City Music hall gig, as per Eddie Trunk & Geezer Butler from Eddie's radio show on Jan 19th.

More details as I get them.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:55 PM

Eddie Trunk Heaven & Hell Announcement Tonight

The wait is very nearly over! The final pieces of the jigsaw are being put in place ahead of an official tour announcement early next week with full details of all confirmed tour dates and support acts. However, for those keen to get a preview of what’s happening, you can tune into Eddie Trunk’s radio show ‘Friday Night Rocks’ which airs live from New York on Q104.3 tonight, Friday 19th January 2007, from 11pm to 2am (EST) for a special announcement. Listeners around the world can tune in live via the station’s website http://www.q1043.com.

UPDATE @ 7:30PM: Eddie Trunk's site has this language on it:

HUGE EXCLUSIVE Concert Announcement tonight, plus Geezer Butler and Ronnie James Dio call in live to discuss Heaven & Hell.

Eddie's site is the only palce that uses the word "concert" announcement. The text I posted above which has appeared elsewhere (like the Iommi.com site), just says "announcement". My personal guess is this will be news of the date of the New York gig. We'll see in a couple of hours.

UPDATE @ 8:15PM: Here's the currently rumoured dates of which we're supposed to get a formal confirmed announcement from band management next week:

March
11 - Vancouver, BC at Pacific Coliseum (with DOWN)
13 - Edmonton, AB at Rexall Place (with Down)
14 - Calgary, AB at Saddledome (with Down)
16 - Regina, SK at Brandt Centre (with Down)
18 - Winnipeg, MB at MTS Centre (with Down)
20 - Sault St. Marie, ON at Steelback Centre (with Down)
22 - Toronto, ON at Air Canada Centre (with Down)
24 - London, ON at John Labatt Centre (with Down)
26 - Montreal, PQ at Bell Centre (with Down)
27 - Quebec City, PQ at Colisee Pepsi Arena (with Down)
28 - Ottawa, ON at Civic Centre (with Down)
30 - New York City, NY at Radio City Music Hall

June
2 - 3 - Milan, Italy at Gods Of Metal Festival
6 - 9 - Sölvesborg, Sweden at Sweden Rock Festival
9 - Tampere, Finland at Sauna Open Air Festival
10 - Helsinki, Finland at Jäähallissa
19 - Warszawa, Poland at Torwar
20 - Katowice, Poland at Spodek Hall
22 - 23 - Balingen, Germany at Bang Your Head!!! Festival

UPDATE @ 11PM: The anouncement was the Radio City Music Hall news which I covered on the next story up on this site.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:42 AM

Heaven & Hell Rumour

UPDATE at 2:10PM: I got an email back from Geezer Butler about this story. I sent him the link, and he replied back with this:

"since the band is called h&h, then hopefully the set list will consist of entirely rjd era songs, including the 3 new songs."

So it sounds to me like they are leaning that way, but haven't settled on what they're playing yet.

Original News post, pre-update:

In reading today's news, I saw this little chestnut turn up online..

HEAVEN AND HELL — the new band featuring legendary heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, RAINBOW) alongside original BLACK SABBATH members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, plus drummer Vinny Appice (DIO, BLACK SABBATH) — has confirmed to TotalRock that it will only be playing songs from the Dio era of BLACK SABBATH on its upcoming world tour. The group will put together its live show from the "Heaven And Hell", "Mob Rules" and "Dehumanizer" albums, plus three new songs written and recorded for the upcoming compilation album "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years".

This is hardly an Earth shattering announcement, this has been assumed since the project was first mentioned. Still, I've shot off a couple of emails to some relevant people asking about this. Hopefully they'll say something, but it's probably more likely they'll say "we haven't made up our minds yet on that". Personally, I have a hard time thinking they've figured out their set list already when rehearsals haven't started (to my knowledge).

One other thing that bugs me about articles like this are news reports that claim something is "confirmed" and then don't back up HOW they confirmed it. My point is don't believe everything you read as news just because someone used the word confirmed. Also, having said that, this is probably what will happen, but I just get irked at the liberal usage of "confirmed" in news stories.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:03 PM

Heaven & Hell Tour Dates

Please note that this story is not "official", nor is it "confirmed". I've taken a little flak recently over my definition of confirmed. Let me say that I see that word thrown around so easily on the Internet without any regard as to what it actually means. People will believe the word confirmed when posted on just any old site, and when said "confirmed news" turns out to be false, they get mad (when they shouldn't have believed it in the first place). Understand that I only consider things confirmed when they're announced by the band management. THAT is confirmation to me.

Having said that, I saw a nice post last night with some rumoured dates for the Canadian leg of the Heaven & Hell Tour 2007. Here's what was posted over at Braveworlds:

March
11 - Vancouver, BC at Pacific Coliseum
13 - Edmonton, AB at Rexall Place
14 - Calgary, AB at Saddledome
16 - Regina, SK at Brandt Centre
18 - Winnipeg, MB at MTS Centre
20 - Sault St. Marie, ON at Steelback Centre
22 - Toronto, ON at Air Canada Centre
24 - London, ON at John Labatt Centre
26 - Montreal, PQ at Bell Centre
27 - Quebec City, PQ at Colisee Pepsi Arena
28 - Ottawa, ON at Civic Centre

As previously reported, possible countries to be visited on Heaven And Hell's World Tour include South America, Japan, Korea, Australia and Europe. The band will then return to North America for a US tour in August.

Hopefully we'll get some concrete tour info, as the first date on that list is now less than eight weeks away.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:08 AM

Heaven & Hell gets moving

The 2007 tour for Black Sabbath er, Heaven & Hell is getting moving. While no official list of tour dates has come out, there's been several rumoured dates, and a few festival dates around Europe talked about. Once the official list comes out, I will be posting it on my 2007 Tour Dates Page. The tour is talked about getting started in March, although the official first date has yet to be formally confirmed by my info. This means tour rehearsals should get started shortly.

There are two official sources of information for the tour that are "online" now. I say that because one is active, and the other one is not.

The inactive one is the official website, which will be at http://www.heavenandhelllive.com. I'm told by Iommi management that this should be active within the next couple of weeks.

The active one is an official Myspace page for the tour. You can reach that page here: http://www.myspace.com/heavenandhelllive - If you are a Myspace member, you can add the tour as a friend.

I wanted to post this story to confirm that both of these resources are indeed official, as there was some confusion on my forums the last 24 hours over them.

Hopefully we'll have some official tour dates soon. I also have no official word on whether they'll be using a keyboardist on tour. I've been told there are no keyboards on the three new songs due for the CD, but for the tour, I do not know yet.

NOTE: Since there's been some confusion about this post of mine yesterday.. I'm aware of certain festival gigs being announced. When I say "Official", I mean Official dates as released by the band. THAT is the official word I'm looking for. Even though a gig has been announced by a venue, I would prefer to wait to hear it from the band before saying "It's Official".

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:25 AM

New Track Information

Right as I left for the Christmas vacation, this news broke, and I wanted to make sure you saw it. Martin Popoff had an article for Bravewords.com about the Dio Years CD. Ronnie talks about the meaning behind one of the tracks (Shadow of the Wind). Check it out:

Says Dio, “‘Shadow Of The Wind' really could be explained a lot of different ways. There is no shadow of the wind, so you're dealing with inconsequential things here. So that kind of simile, I really like a lot, as you know from all the things I've written. But this one is more about a guy who used to be a severe drug addict, who went into rehab to solve his problems. So it's really the drug talking to him through this whole song. And the guy has decided that I guess he's going to have another go at it. So the drug says to him, ‘This time I'm back and I'm stronger, and the first one is always free, and it lasts much longer.’ So it's a much better drug than it used to be. ‘You can bet your sanity.’ So anyway, it's about the needle, or something, slipping under the guy’s skin. And that’s ‘Shadow Of The Wind’.”

But what's much cooler to me is the fact that when Vinny Appice came over to do his bits on the tracks, he recorded them in Tony Iommi's studio. The cool part about THAT is that the drum kit that is in Tony's studio used to belong to Cozy Powell. So the late Cozy Powell will be on the new Sabbath material in a small way. That was a nice thing to read.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:57 AM